In continuous ink jet printer systems ink is supplied under pressure to the orifice cavity of a resonator body and ejects as continuous streams from an orifice plate aimed toward a print zone. The resonator body is vibrated to cause the ink streams to break up into uniformly sized and shaped droplets. A charge plate subsystem is located proximate the stream break-up point and droplets are selectively charged if intended to be non-printing ones. The charged, non-printing drops are deflected to a catcher subassembly which routes them back to the main ink supply. Uncharged drops pass on to the print zone.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,591,875; 4,607,261 and 4,614,948 describe continuous ink jet printers of the kind wherein a print head can traverse to and from the home station and along an operative print path. The '875 and '261 patents disclose fluid handling systems wherein ink reservoirs are constructed as readily replaceable cartridges that cooperate with fluid conduits of the printer in an easily connectible and disconnectible fashion.
By combining a plurality of printer systems such as described in the above-noted patents, printing can be effected with a corresponding plurality of different color inks. The fluid systems envisioned are completely duplicative, each different color fluid system having all the components of the others. This approach works well; however, the redundancy of components presents a fruitful area for ingenious cost-saving by joint usage of some components. Also that fluid system described in those patents presents challenges for improved compactness to the designer.
U.S. application Ser. No. 168,093, entitled "Modular Two-Color Fluid System For Continuous Ink Jet Printer", by Huliba et al, describes a modular two color printer approach wherein a single vacuum source is coupled to two different color ink cartridges to simplify the combined system. However, the ink cartridges of this system utilize six check-valved fluid connections, which can result in a high overall cartridge insertion actuation force (e.g. 25 pounds/cartridge). This necessitates a leveraging cartridge insertion system (e.g. with a ten-to-one mechanical advantage); and the resultant mechanical structure is space consuming and expensive. These printer systems also have required two separate air moving pumps, one for supplying cartridge vacuum and one for providing forced air for print head drying. This increases overall printer cost and reduces printer reliability.